I just returned from a week at the Sustainability Institute in Vermont, founded by Donella Meadows. John Sterman presented a graphic stock and flow/graph of climate change and Elizabeth Sawin spoke about extinction (among many other things). It got me wondering...
Climate change is very real. We will see Arctic polar ice cap extinction in our lifetimes, many of us. This year, in the media there was a plea from one of the Arctic tribes to stop global climate change by doing something about fossil fuel combustion. There are plenty of credible warnings. The science is unimpeachable that we see the impacts years after human-induced CO2 releases actually reach the stratosphere (troposphere?). So, even after we curtail CO2 releases it will be some 20 years before the primary impacts are mitigated. It is happening above our heads. Repeat: It is happening right now.
We know this. So why are humans unable to respond by taking action in a remedial way? We love our children, and make sacrifices for their betterment every day. Yet we are persistently impacting their quality of life. It makes sense that we'd not engage in conduct which knowingly wreaks havoc into their world. Yet, we do.
I have a theory. In many ways, we're the genetic cumulation of our thousands of ancestors, tossed together and methodically sifted and sorted from generation to generation. We have evolved to our current state and will evolve further thru our children and theirs. We give birth, and the evolutionary dice are rolled again for yet a better match between human and earth. We die, and the less-adapted parts of our continuum over time are discarded to be remade into fresh plants, then fresh bugs, fresh lizards, fresh snakes,... you get the picture. The very thing that lets the dice of evolution keep getting rolled (death) is the very thing that causes us to have to start all over again with the process of viewing the world anew, finding new ways to solve problems and, ultimately, living to the limit of our ability to adapt.
Radical environmental and atmospheric changes cause deaths, accellerate births, cause mutations, and other "high frequency" human changes. In other words, the possibilities are played out faster in times of crisis. And there is a reason. It is all logical and rational, no matter how cruel and personal it may seem.
Look at it from the Earth's perspective. You have this dissonant organism which is vastly capable of populating the earth, but inferior in its ability to steward a balanced "place" on earth. And here is an analogy... if you get an infection, then your body manufactures a fever to kill the offensive parasite by creating conditions under which you can live, but the germ is beyond its optimal survival temperature.
So, we haven't yet as a species, managed to live in community at the level of doing what is best for the community instead of what is best for our own set of self-perpetuating genes. We haven't yet reached a universal understanding that what is good for the whole is good for the individual. Tribal peoples tend to have a fairly sophisticated understanding that community good is a principle of survival. And in this respect, randian capitalism is morally blind to an important principle of survival, although it was an effective short-term method of intraspecies competition. Doubtless, there will be other strategies equally valid in their respective historical moments, and some of which we cannot even conceive yet.
But from this rainy Spring night in northeastern Oklahoma, it seems that our fates lie in understanding peak oil and global climate abberation from an intergenerational compassion. Either way, we eventually die and our choices live on, with or without our progeny.[/i]
PeakOil is You
Intergenerational Amnesia - How do we continue to learn if
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Intergenerational Amnesia - How do we continue to learn if
by kathcart » Mon 08 Mar 2004, 02:51:40
Change happens when the pain of remaining the same exceeds the pain of doing things in a different way. Don't despair-- it is an opportunity to reformulate a new direction for ourselves, and the futures of our children.
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Waiting for the fall
by pamur » Mon 08 Mar 2004, 12:56:27
Kathcart
You are right in recognizing the situation we are in as a run of the mill correction for the Earth system. But that doesn't mean we can't try to influence the outcome to our own benefit. I am blown away by the lack of discussion from our leaders about the problems of climate change/peak oil. I am sure that we could lessen the impact of oil depletion with a concerted effort to cut back on oil based consumption but I see no hint of concern from our planners. I feel like I am in a space/time warp. I am in a world of diminished resources but my leaders are still doing fine.
You are right in recognizing the situation we are in as a run of the mill correction for the Earth system. But that doesn't mean we can't try to influence the outcome to our own benefit. I am blown away by the lack of discussion from our leaders about the problems of climate change/peak oil. I am sure that we could lessen the impact of oil depletion with a concerted effort to cut back on oil based consumption but I see no hint of concern from our planners. I feel like I am in a space/time warp. I am in a world of diminished resources but my leaders are still doing fine.
We're all entitled to our own opinions...but we have to share the facts.
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by kathcart » Tue 09 Mar 2004, 01:14:36
Usually, political leaders are counter-cyclical.... that is they do not take action toward changing things until everyone is already on board wtih the new idea. It is regressivity. And it says that we have habituated politicians to punishment for being progressive. "Sytems are designed to do what they do." I think punishing progressives is an unintended consequence of stuff that otherwise makes sense by voters.... avoiding a bloody runoff, voting without maybe all of the facts at hand, and that sort of thing. Bush and Cheney know about oil reserves, but I think they are steering clear because they don't want to get "blamed" for the message. <g>
Change happens when the pain of remaining the same exceeds the pain of doing things in a different way. Don't despair-- it is an opportunity to reformulate a new direction for ourselves, and the futures of our children.
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Why they do nothing
by Robert Espy » Thu 11 Mar 2004, 17:54:38
I'm certainly no expert but it seems to me that the politicians are unwilling to do anything about global warming or peak oil because there really isn't that much they can do that wouldn't cause even more problems in other areas.
Many on the left and the right, as well as capitalists in general, will certainly use and even promote the fear of these and other problems, but only insofar as it has a real chance of achieving some other agenda, usually a hidden one.
Many on the left and the right, as well as capitalists in general, will certainly use and even promote the fear of these and other problems, but only insofar as it has a real chance of achieving some other agenda, usually a hidden one.
- Robert Espy
by kathcart » Thu 11 Mar 2004, 18:42:05
I plan to bring my home off-grid as stealthily as I can. BTW, Ebay has some deals on solar retrofits, for those who live in rural areas and have the land to grow food. One thing I saw was a portable cabin retrofit for about $500 for modest users.
Change happens when the pain of remaining the same exceeds the pain of doing things in a different way. Don't despair-- it is an opportunity to reformulate a new direction for ourselves, and the futures of our children.
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by Guest » Thu 11 Mar 2004, 18:58:33
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kathcart', 'I') plan to bring my home off-grid as stealthily as I can. BTW, Ebay has some deals on solar retrofits, for those who live in rural areas and have the land to grow food. One thing I saw was a portable cabin retrofit for about $500 for modest users.
Why stealthily? Anyway, doing so might reduce greenhouse gases by an inmeasureable amount but isn't likely to have any impact on peak oil.
- Guest
by Kenny » Tue 16 Mar 2004, 15:02:13
The answer I think is pretty simple. Political success is based on a promise of prosperity. Even communist China and the Soviet Union based their power on the idea of an economic growth that would bring up the standard of living of the masses, even if it was backed up by totalitarian repression.
Who is going to advocate change when the answer to the question "are you better off now than you were four or eight years ago/" is going to be a resounding, and permanent "no." If story of the rest of the 21st century is going to be the economic contraction of the industrialized world, with the U.S., at 25 barrels of oil per person per year, having the farthest to fall, then of course no politician will advocate change. Even as it's happening, the politicians who succeed will be the ones who offer miracle cures, such as maintaining or oil supply by threat of force.
Who is going to advocate change when the answer to the question "are you better off now than you were four or eight years ago/" is going to be a resounding, and permanent "no." If story of the rest of the 21st century is going to be the economic contraction of the industrialized world, with the U.S., at 25 barrels of oil per person per year, having the farthest to fall, then of course no politician will advocate change. Even as it's happening, the politicians who succeed will be the ones who offer miracle cures, such as maintaining or oil supply by threat of force.
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by Robert Espy » Tue 16 Mar 2004, 21:02:28
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Kenny', 'E')ven as it's happening, the politicians who succeed will be the ones who offer miracle cures, such as maintaining or oil supply by threat of force.
Touche. But why you speak in future tense evades me. The threat of which you speak has more than once been turned into a promise and kept.
- Robert Espy
Intergenerational Amnesia
by Tanada » Mon 24 Nov 2008, 20:44:17
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Kenny', 'S')ure. We now have a big chunk of our military assets parked on top of some of the world's biggest oil fields. And clearly we'll never leave as long as oil is still flowing in the region.
Sadly it is starting to look as if this prediction is going to pan out, Mr. Obama is now hinting we may be in Iraq a very long time. We have gone from an immediate pull out to maybe in 2011, to nobody knows when we might be able to leave.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Alfred Tennyson', 'W')e are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
- Tanada
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